I was working out something, no, somethings, as I worked today in the Best Cafe Ever. Not just me who thinks that. about the Best Cafe Ever. I hear it all the time, and more so today when someone said just that. Not to me directly, but to one of the Calgary Girls, we who serve and smile and pet dogs and clear tables and oh goodness, forgive me, there are men in this mix and it matters to them too. One the boss, t’other the Tuesday Chef. Both marvellous men. It’s just that mostly, it is the Calgary Girls who work the dynamic in the cafe. Although we are all, without doubt, deciders on inhabiting the sometimes awkward space the servery, we are the inviters.

Remember times when you arrived for coffee on a platform, or in a cafe, or in a clothes shop when the one who could bridge the gap across a counter did, or didn’t and the difference it made, not just to a possible purchase, but to how you felt for the rest of the day? We want to be seen. We really do. There is the very possible to interpolation, of a little smile, a welcome, a warm conversation. We know we are one of many, that the welcomer is fed up, has her/his own life stuff, but that smile can change our whole journey to work, to trouble, to tough decisions, to whatever. For me, this is the gift I can give. I have no idea about the life of anyone who orders one cappuccino with oat milk, one without, and one blackcurrant muffin, one slab of chocolate cake, two plates, two forks. I don’t need to. I love serving, making an experience a very happy one for them. They are people.

I looked into the ‘inter’ word. It’s so easy now with Google and AI, but in my day it was a downstairs scoot to the Huge Oxford Dictionnary taking up hours and dusty inches in the sitting room bookcase. A word came to me, found me, no idea what it meant but the way the letters connected, the way they fitted, caught me. I like it. I hesitate here. It seems as though interfusion is invited and, perhaps it still is. I am old now and still wondering, and yet, and yet, when i get a welcome from a barista, eyes on me, or a eye response to my hallo. I get it. We need to be seen, ultimately to be heard.

So, let’s start on this. If we step out there, traversing the wild of our imaginings, keep walking, keep telling ourselves we want to connect, no fear, no fear. I have walked beside someone who nudged me away from any possible connection on the streets. I won’t do that again.

Everyone needs to be seen.